"Karawynn Long - Adjusting the Moon" - читать интересную книгу автора (Long Karawynn)

didn't make her any less embarrassed.
"Now, is there anything else you'd like to adjust in the simulation
before I lock it in?"
Melanie thought a moment, then shook her head. "Just the moon, I
guess."
"Yes. I'm sorry about that. I didn't know you were recreating a
particular night, or I would have programmed that in." The woman looked at
her, more reproachful than apologetic, Melanie thought.
"I wasn't, at first. It just occurred to me, sort of, when I was
there."
"I see. Well, if that's all, we can get you out of that suit now."
Melanie nodded, and was relieved to see the junior techs exit
discreetly. She was, by necessity, entirely nude under the bodysuit; direct
skin contact was required to induce the various tactile sensations. She tried
to unvelcro the front, but the gloves' wires made it awkward, and she had to
wait for the director to do it for her. Once Melanie had her arms clear, the
woman pressed a button on the chair, and the whole thing hummed and began
tilting forward. The legs were somewhat more difficult, but eventually she
was free of the entire contraption. She put her clothes back on gratefully.
She said goodbye to the director and made her way through the halls to
the front lobby, where she reserved a machine for tomorrow evening and paid in
advance. The decorators had been unsubtle -- the whole building was done in
sleek black and silver, and fairly screamed hi-tech. The other customers
she'd seen matched, tending towards mirrored glasses and colorflow bodysuits,
and Melanie felt desperately out of place.
It had been Jason who first suggested they rent one of the new VR setups
when Virtual Worlds had opened six months before. She'd never been too
interested in that kind of thing, but his enthusiasm was contagious, and she'd
eventually agreed to try it. They'd chosen to explore Mars, the newest stock
simulation. After the recent cooperative mission, two of the American
astronauts had sold their memories of the experience to VPL. The resulting
program was touted as "better than being there," although there were only
fourteen people on the planet who could provide the comparison.
Mars was actually prettier than she had expected, for a place so barren;
the sky was shell-pink, and the dirt soft and fine like ground cinnamon. They
had stood together at the top of the Valles Marineris, five times deeper than
the Grand Canyon -- and Jason had grinned mischieviously and coaxed her into
jumping with him. Her hands shook for hours afterward, adrenalin pumping
through her body even though her mind knew there wasn't any danger. It hadn't
even happened in any real sense -- yet even so, it had been one of the most
impressive and wondrous experiences of her whole life.
If they hadn't gone then, together, Melanie doubted the idea would ever
have occurred to her now, even after seeing the ad for a "Free Personality
Simulation" with any three-hour rental. She stayed away from high technology
in general, stubbornly keeping audio-only phones, for example. She'd minored
in Computer Science at school -- even in a field like agriculture you could
hardly avoid it and expect to get a job -- but she was still the only person
she knew under forty who didn't have her own PC.
But the more she thought about it, the more she began to look forward to
returning to the virtual world. She did feel a little guilty about it, as